A Boy After Her Own Heart
by Dead Composer
Summary: How will Muffy adjust to life as a boy?
1. I Think I'm a Clone Now

This fic is rated PG for mature themes.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Arthur (yet).  
  
----  
  
Judging from the sunlight creeping through the blinds of the west-facing window, it was late afternoon. So why was she lying in bed? She never took naps after school. She felt rather strange, so perhaps she was sick. Not only was she lightheaded and groggy, but it seemed that every part of her body was, inexplicably, sending her signals that they were no longer as she remembered them.  
  
With some effort Muffy managed to push herself into a sitting position. Her head spun crazily. Her clothing felt unfamiliar against her skin. Cotton underwear? What had happened to her silk? "Ooohh..." she groaned, and her voice sounded somewhat lower in pitch, as if she had a throat infection.  
  
She jumped down to the floor and fought to steady herself. It was clear she was no longer wearing her dress, or even the same shoes as before. The dizziness started to fade, and she shortly felt confident enough to walk.  
  
Her braids, which normally bounced about her shoulders, were nowhere to be seen. Even her gait seemed off, as if her center of gravity had shifted. Perceiving with relief that she was in her own bedroom, she stepped slowly and hesitantly toward the full-length mirror.  
  
She gasped in horror at the sight. The figure staring back at her had a body shape and facial features similar to her own, but resembled a boy instead of a girl. The reflection had short, neatly trimmed red hair, and wore a stylish brown polo shirt with a pair of matching corduroy slacks. Looking down, she saw a pair of brown leather shoes adorning her feet.  
  
Having short hair came as an unpleasant shock, but not an unfamiliar one, as she had once cut most of it off to cure a nasty case of head lice. Yet the style of her new haircut, and the clothes and shoes she was wearing, represented the cutting edge of fashion...for boys. What had possessed her to make herself look like a boy?  
  
As she gazed at the boyish reflection, memories started to trickle into her brain...  
  
"Look over there!" she exclaimed, pointing at a display in the Toys-4-U store. "It's the new Princess Peach doll house!"  
  
"I want it! I want it!" cried Prunella, who hurried along the mall corridor with the other girls in tow. When they reached the toy shop, they became disheartened at the sight of the price tag.  
  
"$49.99," Fern moaned. "I can't afford that."  
  
"Look at that construction," Francine marveled. "I'll bet it's solid pine."  
  
Muffy dropped a hand into her pocket and started to draw out her wallet, then made a somber face and let it slide back in. "Maybe later," she said disinterestedly.  
  
A few minutes later the girls were seated together in the food court, enjoying ice cream cones. "Muffy, I've never seen you pass up a new doll house before," Prunella remarked.  
  
Muffy glanced up at her briefly and took another lick from her cone.  
  
"Are you okay?" asked Prunella.  
  
Muffy sighed. "I'm fine. I've just been thinking lately..."  
  
"Look out, everyone," said Francine with a grin. "Here comes another crazy Muffy scheme."  
  
"No, it's not a scheme," said Muffy solemnly. "I feel like...like something's missing from my life, and it's not a doll house."  
  
"Whatever it is," said Fern, "it must be very expensive, or you would have bought it by now."  
  
"No, I think she's talking about some kind of unfulfilled spiritual need," said Prunella.  
  
Muffy looked at each of her friends in turn. "I really like you girls," she said earnestly. "I like shopping with you, I like trying on clothes with you, I like doing other stuff with you. The problem is...well, you're girls."  
  
"I can change," Francine responded.  
  
"What I need is a boy to do things with," Muffy went on.  
  
"You mean, like a boyfriend?" asked Fern.  
  
"Or a brother," Muffy continued. "But the boys at our school only care about sports, and action movies, and power tools. They have no interest in the finer things."  
  
"What's wrong with power tools?" Francine wondered.  
  
The flashback ended, and a horrifying realization gripped Muffy. Turning away from the mirror, she hurried into the bathroom and closed the door. After spending a few moments fumbling for the zipper, she pulled down the brown slacks she was wearing, and saw...  
  
"NOOOOOOO!"  
  
Alerted by the scream, Mrs. Crosswire burst into Muffy's bedroom. Seeing that the bathroom door had been shut, she knocked on it three times. "Are you all right in there?" she called out. Seconds passed, and the only sound she heard from inside the room was a child's bitter sobs.  
  
Finally the door slowly opened, and a red-haired boy with tear-stained cheeks appeared before her. "No, I'm not all right," he said in a voice devoid of hope or happiness. "I'm a boy."  
  
"Of course you are," was Mrs. Crosswire's calm response to what should have been startling news.  
  
Then another figure appeared from behind the woman's back--a second Muffy. "Oh, good, you're awake," said the lookalike girl with a glib smile.  
  
The boy who had been Muffy struggled to make sense of what he was seeing and hearing. His gender had changed, his mother didn't seem to care, and there was a girl in his room who looked and spoke exactly like him, or rather, like the girl he no longer was.  
  
Stark terror overwhelmed his mind as his memories became focused and he realized the truth of the situation.  
  
"Oh, no," he mumbled in a weak, anguished voice. "I'm the clone. I'm the freaking clone!"  
  
Muffy nodded and kept smiling. "We decided to call you Dwayne, after Grandpa," she informed him.  
  
The boy's eyes flashed fire. "Unclone me!" he demanded angrily. "I don't want to be a boy!"  
  
"Calm down, Dwayne," Muffy reassured him. "You'll get used to it."  
  
Dwayne, as he was now called, glowered fiercely at Muffy and her mother, and wished he could simply erase himself from existence. Their concerned gazes soon softened his indignant heart, and he lowered his face shamefully. "This is all my fault," he admitted glumly. "I didn't think about how a boy clone would react to having my personality. How could I have been so stupid?"  
  
"You've only been alive for fifteen minutes," Muffy pointed out. "How can it be your fault?"  
  
Mrs. Crosswire motioned to the boy. "Come into the dining room," she instructed him. "You haven't eaten yet, so you must be hungry."  
  
Tears still streaming from his eyes, Dwayne trudged after Muffy and her mother. "This is horrible," he lamented on the way to the dinner table. "Now I'll be a boy for the rest of my life."  
  
"Get over it," said Muffy flippantly. "Being a boy isn't bad, or at least so I've been told."  
  
Pulling himself onto a chair, Dwayne brushed aside a sales receipt marked 1 CLONE, 8 YRS, MALE, $49,995, and reached into his pants pockets in search of a handkerchief. He couldn't find one, so Muffy handed him one of hers, and he mopped his eyes and cheeks with it.  
  
Claude, the manservant, laid a plate of leftover chicken cordon bleu in front of the despondent boy. Muffy seated himself across from him, still smiling gleefully. "After dinner," she announced, "I'm going to introduce you to all my friends, and then we're going shopping."  
  
Dwayne only grunted miserably.  
  
"Don't you like shopping?" asked Muffy, her smile fading.  
  
"Well, duh," the boy snapped. "Of course I like shopping. I'm you."  
  
Muffy watched silently as Dwayne sliced himself a portion of chicken and hesitantly raised it to his mouth, as if unsure of how to eat in his new body.  
  
"Maybe you need a little time to adjust," she suggested. "I understand. Hey, Mom, what time does the mall close tonight?"  
  
"Nine o'clock," came her mother's voice.  
  
Dwayne sighed bitterly. "Look at me, Muffy," he groused with a mouth full of chicken. "I'm a boy. How would you like it if you were a boy?"  
  
Muffy pondered his question for a few moments. "I wouldn't like it at all," she replied in a serious tone.  
  
The red-haired boy shook his head sadly. "Now I'll have to wear boy clothes," he complained. "I can never wear dresses again. I'll never be a fashion model, and I'll never get married and have babies."  
  
"Look at the bright side," said Muffy cheerfully. "You don't have to sit down to pee anymore."  
  
"You are so rude," Dwayne shot back. "My life is over, and all you can do is make jokes. You have no idea what I'm going through."  
  
He took another bite of chicken while Muffy gazed sympathetically at him. While he chewed, the girl lowered her eyes and he started to hope for a helpful comment from her.  
  
"I was wrong," she finally spoke up. "I thought you'd be an Autumn like me, but you're definitely a Winter."  
  
Dwayne groaned despairingly.  
  
----  
  
Please write reviews! Let me know if you want the story to continue! 


	2. Just One of the Boys

The Crosswire guest bedroom was supplied with old furniture. Old, in this case, meant anything that had been scratched, scuffed, stained, or replaced on a whim. The room lacked decorations, and the bed was a simple affair with a king-sized mattress and a spartan wooden frame. It would suit a visitor of either gender, or, in Dwayne's case, a person who was unhappy with his or her gender.  
  
The young clone sat on the edge of the bed, still wearing the same brown clothing, staring intently into the dresser mirror that Muffy had once scratched with a nail file in a fit of pique. A boy with short red hair stared back at him. He wished with all his might that the events of the day would prove to be a mere nightmare, that the reflection in the mirror would change into a girl with braids and a dress. At the same time, he knew deep within that it would never happen. He remembered every detail of how he--or rather, Muffy--had selfishly decided to order the creation of a male clone of herself, to serve as a playmate with common interests. He was a freak of science, a being with no purpose but to amuse another. He couldn't blame Muffy for what she had done, as he was possessed of the same self-absorbed cruelty.  
  
As he dolefully regarded his reflection, Muffy bounded gaily into the room, her braids twisting about. "We're going to have so much fun," she gushed. "First we'll visit Arthur, and then Francine, and then Buster..."  
  
Dwayne shook his head. "I don't want them to see me like this," he said miserably. "They'll make fun of me."  
  
"No, they won't," said Muffy with an oblivious smile. "I'll tell them you're my cousin from Crown City."  
  
"They'll figure it out," Dwayne insisted. "I look like you. I talk like you."  
  
"Come on, Dwayne," urged Muffy, pulling on the boy's arm. "You have nothing to worry about."  
  
Dwayne resisted the girl's efforts to draw him away from the bed. "I don't want to do it," he groused. "I don't want to do anything."  
  
"You're no fun," Muffy complained, releasing his hand. "I thought having a boy clone would be fun."  
  
"I'm sorry to disappoint you," said Dwayne haughtily. "Maybe you should get your money back."  
  
"Fine," said Muffy, swiveling on her heel. "You can stay in your room all night if you want, but you'll just have to face them tomorrow at school."  
  
As the frustrated girl marched out of the room, Dwayne pondered what she had told him. Like any child, cloned or otherwise, he would have to attend school, and he might find it easier to deal with the entire class in his new persona if he practiced on a few of his friends, one at a time. Heaving a sigh of resignation, he pushed himself down from the bed.  
  
----  
  
"This is my cousin Dwayne, from Crown City," Muffy announced to Arthur and D.W., who had come to the door to welcome the visiting girl and boy.  
  
"Pleased to make your acquaintance," said Dwayne stuffily as he shook hands with Arthur.  
  
"Are you rich too?" D.W. asked him hopefully.  
  
"Um...uh..." Dwayne stammered.  
  
"Yes, he is," Muffy answered for him. "His father is a successful, uh, steelworker."  
  
Muffy and Dwayne followed Arthur into the living room. D.W., in the meantime, ran to find her mother in front of the computer. "Mom! Mom!" she cried out.  
  
"What is it, dear?" asked Mrs. Read, who was opening a spreadsheet of tax data.  
  
"Muffy has a rich cousin," D.W. related. "And he's a boy."  
  
"That's nice," said her mother with an indifferent smile.  
  
"A rich boy," said D.W. wistfully. "If I marry him, I won't have to learn how to read."  
  
On the couch, Arthur was grilling the new boy with questions. "What kind of stuff do you like to do?" he inquired.  
  
"I like shopping," Dwayne replied. "I like trying on new clothes, and reading fashion magazines."  
  
"You're just like Muffy," Arthur remarked with delight.  
  
"You have no idea," said Muffy, who sat beside the two boys.  
  
"What's your favorite TV show?" was Arthur's next question.  
  
"Princess Peach," Dwayne answered without thinking.  
  
Arthur and Muffy shot him funny looks.  
  
"Oh, you said favorite," said Dwayne nervously. "I thought you said least favorite. My favorite show is, uh, Bionic Bunny, of course."  
  
Arthur's face lit up. "I love Bionic Bunny! What's your favorite episode?"  
  
Dwayne struggled for a response. "Uh...er...what's yours?"  
  
"The one where he fights the Roach Queen, and she lays her eggs in his stomach. But he's okay, because his stomach is bionic. So he just pops it out and puts in another one."  
  
Dwayne grimaced in horror. "Uh, that's my favorite too," he choked out.  
  
"I've got it on tape," Arthur offered. "Wanna watch it with me?"  
  
Dwayne started to sweat rivulets. "Uh, I need to powder my nose," he excused himself. Grabbing Muffy by the hand, he led the girl out of the living room and out the front door as the dumbfounded Arthur watched.  
  
"That was rude," Muffy chided Dwayne as she hurried after the quick-walking boy. "You left without so much as saying goodbye. And boys don't powder their noses."  
  
"I know," was Dwayne's bitter response. "But he wanted me to watch that vomitrocious boy's cartoon."  
  
"What's wrong with that? You're a boy."  
  
"Don't remind me," Dwayne grumbled.  
  
Their next destination was Francine's apartment. "Hi, Muffy," the girl greeted them. "Who's your friend?"  
  
"This is my cousin Dwayne," Muffy answered. "From Crown City."  
  
As Dwayne stepped inside, he saw Nemo curled up against a wall. "Kitty kitty," he called, bending over and stretching his hand toward the kitten. To his surprise, Nemo hissed and lashed out with a paw. "Ow!" exclaimed Dwayne, gazing with annoyance at his scratched finger.  
  
"He doesn't like strangers," Francine pointed out.  
  
"But I'm not a..." Dwayne started to say, but cut himself off.  
  
The three kids took seats. "Tell me about yourself, Dwayne," Francine requested.  
  
"My dad is a rich steelworker," Dwayne began. As he made up facts about his nonexistent family, he noticed that Francine was gazing at him with a dopey grin and glowing eyes.  
  
"I didn't know Muffy had a cousin," the girl remarked. "And you seem like a really nice boy, too. Will you be coming to our school?"  
  
"I guess so," replied Dwayne flatly.  
  
The conversation wore on, and Muffy observed through the corner of her eye that her clone was appearing increasingly uneasy. Finally the boy jumped to his feet and said, "Francine, may I please use your bathroom? I need to, er, ah, pee."  
  
Muffy blushed in horror.  
  
"Go ahead, Dwayne," said Francine in a warm, friendly tone.  
  
Once Dwayne was inside Francine's bathroom, he started to push the door closed, but Muffy forced her way in. Her face was a mask of indignation.  
  
"Pee?" she blurted out. "What an unrefined, ungentlemanly thing to say!"  
  
Dwayne shrugged. "At least I didn't say I needed to powder my nose."  
  
Muffy could only sputter incredulously.  
  
"What was I supposed to say?" Dwayne asked her. "What does a gentleman say when he needs to, you know..."  
  
"I don't know," said Muffy, racking her brain. "I guess you could say you need to see a man about a horse."  
  
"Like anyone would swallow that story," said Dwayne mockingly. "Francine, there's a man in your bathroom with a horse, and I need to talk to him."  
  
While Muffy searched for the right words, Dwayne's expression became serious.  
  
"And there's another thing," he said with a hint of anxiety. "Did you notice how Francine was looking at me?"  
  
"You mean the dopey grin and the glowing eyes?" Muffy replied. "Maybe she thinks you're cute."  
  
Dwayne groaned and put his hands over his face.  
  
"And you are cute," Muffy went on. "You're my clone, after all."  
  
Dropping his hands, Dwayne glowered at Muffy. "Don't you get it?" he snapped. "I'm a boy! What if she develops a crush on me? What if she falls in love with me?"  
  
"Then you'll have a girlfriend," said Muffy, trying to be helpful. "There's nothing wrong with that."  
  
"There's plenty wrong with that," Dwayne protested. "I may be a boy on the outside, but I'm still a girl on the inside."  
  
Muffy's jaw dropped. "Omigosh...you're defective!"  
  
"That's not what I mean," said Dwayne, waving his hands in despair. "What's the use of trying to explain? You'll never understand."  
  
Muffy placed her hands over the distraught boy's shoulders and gazed at him sympathetically. Dwayne's eyelids rose as he expected a kind word to soothe his troubled spirit.  
  
It didn't come. "I don't think Francine's very good-looking either," said Muffy in a half-whisper. "Have you thought about Sue Ellen at all?"  
  
----  
  
to be continued 


	3. A Girl's Honor

After Muffy had introduced Dwayne to all her friends, the pair went to the mall in the company of Mrs. Crosswire. Dwayne was hesitant to enter the crowded Dullard's clothing store, but Muffy reminded him that he needed more than one set of clothes to be presentable. Shopping with one Muffy was always an adventure, but shopping with two Muffys, one of which was a boy, proved to be extremely problematic.  
  
The path to the boys' clothes section wound through the parts of the store featuring dresses, perfumes, and jewelry. They had barely set out when Dwayne cried out with delight, hurried to one of the displays, and picked up a small, shiny object. "Omigosh, what a cute little amethyst brooch!" he exclaimed, holding the pin so that the store lights reflected off the purple stones. "Can I get it, Mom?"  
  
Muffy and Mrs. Crosswire glanced around with expressions of embarrassment.  
  
Dwayne's face fell as he realized his error. "Oh, right," he said quietly, replacing the brooch in its case. "I'm a boy now."  
  
Shortly thereafter, Muffy stopped at a dress rack to examine a turquoise Chanel that had attracted her fancy. When she and her mother had browsed halfway around the rack in search of the right dress size, they found to their horror that Dwayne had pulled off one of the dresses and was holding it up to his chest.  
  
"What are you doing?" said Muffy in an outraged half-whisper.  
  
"I just wanted to be helpful," replied Dwayne with a wistful smile. "If the dress fits me, it fits you, because I'm your clone."  
  
"Give me that," snapped Muffy, grabbing the dress from Dwayne's hands. She then lifted the article of clothing to her own bosom, grinned with satisfaction, and laid it over her arm.  
  
By the time they reached the boys' clothes department, the glum-faced Dwayne had lost most of his urge to shop. "So what'll it be?" Muffy asked him as she thumbed through a pile of gray slacks.  
  
"Uh, I don't care," said Dwayne, shrugging.  
  
"Look over here." Muffy stepped over to one of the clothing displays. "Khaki jeans are on sale."  
  
"You can't be serious," Dwayne protested. "Khakis are so last year."  
  
"I thought you didn't care," said Muffy.  
  
"I don't," said Dwayne, snatching a pair of jeans from the stack.  
  
He felt odd and unnatural as he walked through the mall corridor with a bag full of boy clothes dangling from his fingers. Mrs. Crosswire, seeing his morose expression, suggested, "Maybe the toy store will lighten your mood."  
  
"It just might," Dwayne muttered.  
  
While Muffy's mother held the bags of clothing, the two kids began to wander about the aisles of the Toy With Us store. Dwayne found little that interested him and was intended for boys, but Muffy was drawn to a porcelain doll with a polka-dot dress that stood on a wall shelf.  
  
"It's gorgeous," she gushed, turning the doll around in her hands. "All my other porcelain dolls are now obsolete."  
  
"Can I hold it?" Dwayne requested.  
  
Muffy pulled the doll away from him. "I don't think so."  
  
"Please," Dwayne pleaded earnestly. "Just for a second."  
  
Touched by the boy's pitiful tone of voice, Muffy gave in. "All right, but don't get used to it."  
  
She carefully placed the doll in Dwayne's hands, and he started to run his fingers through the toy's smooth blond hair. As Muffy was about to yank it away from him, she noticed the presence of someone familiar in another corner of the store.  
  
"Look!" she exclaimed, pointing.  
  
Dwayne, still clutching the porcelain doll, turned his head. "It's Rattles," he observed.  
  
The tough boy Rattles, his attention absorbed by an electric train that was passing through a plastic tunnel, straightened up and looked over his shoulder when he heard a voice speak his name. "What are you staring at?" he said with a menacing sneer.  
  
"I didn't know you liked trains," Muffy replied innocently.  
  
"I didn't know you liked sissies," Rattles rejoined, turning his gaze to Dwayne. Muffy, realizing in horror that her clone was still fondling the porcelain doll, quickly plucked it from his hands and laid it on the shelf.  
  
"He was holding it for me," she tried to explain.  
  
"Is he one of your servants?" said Rattles mockingly as he stepped closer to the pair. "Are you so lazy that you hire people to play with your toys?"  
  
"I am NOT lazy," retorted the indignant Muffy. "I work very hard."  
  
"Yeah, at being a dork," said Rattles.  
  
Muffy let out a gasp of outrage. "How rude!" she chided the boy. "You take that back this instant!"  
  
"And what if I don't?" growled Rattles, flexing his substantial biceps.  
  
After a moment of thought, Muffy laid a hand on Dwayne's back and pushed him forward. "Then my cousin Dwayne will beat you up," she threatened.  
  
Struck speechless, Dwayne gaped at the towering bully in front of him. "Let's see what you got, kid," said Rattles as he raised a left fist, then a right.  
  
Certain that Muffy had betrayed him to his death, Dwayne could only stand stock still, paralyzed with fear. Rattles waved his fists about, waiting impatiently for the boy to launch a first strike.  
  
Then Muffy saw, resting on a nearby shelf, some articles that might assist Dwayne in his battle--a pair of oversized, green, foam-rubber fists. She pulled them down and handed them to her clone, saying, "Wear these. They'll make you stronger."  
  
As Rattles watched incredulously, Dwayne stuck his hands into the openings in the green fists and shook them at the bully. "Grrr," the monkey boy intoned unconvincingly. "Puny human make Sulk angry. Sulk smash puny human."  
  
Amused by Dwayne's pathetic posturing, Rattles decided upon a different torment. He screamed in terror and pointed into the air, prompting Dwayne and Muffy to turn around in hopes of seeing what had frightened him. Once their backs were to him, Rattles stuck his fingers into the back of Dwayne's pants, seized the rim of the boy's briefs, and pulled upward with all his might.  
  
"AAAAAARRRRGH!"  
  
The blinding discomfort and embarrassment were unlike anything Dwayne, or Muffy, had ever experienced. Rattles stood gloating while his hapless victim blushed and gasped for air. When the bully saw Mrs. Crosswire walking toward the back of the store, apparently responding to the scream, he made a hasty departure.  
  
Muffy seemed to care nothing about Dwayne's agony. "And you call yourself a boy," she scolded him. "That big lout called me a dork, and you stood there and did nothing. Don't you know that a boy is responsible for defending a girl's honor?"  
  
Dwayne, his groin bruised and sore, could take no more of Muffy's insensitivity to his plight. Anger poured into his heart, but it wasn't the kind of anger he was accustomed to. It was boy anger--raging, destructive, irresistible boy anger. He was no longer in control.  
  
In full view of Mrs. Crosswire, he drew back a fist and let it fly at Muffy's nose. The impact was felt by all the toy store patrons.  
  
Thrown backwards by the punch, Muffy struck the shelf where she had laid the porcelain doll, knocking it against the wall and onto the floor with her flailing arm. It broke into a hundred fragments upon landing. To add injury to injury, Muffy, her balance lost, fell onto her rear in the exact spot where the most jagged pieces of the shattered doll had come to rest.  
  
"OOOOWWW! My butt!"  
  
Muffy burst into tears as her mother raised her up with one hand and used the other to pluck out the chunks of porcelain lodged in her posterior. Still furious, Dwayne only glowered at the miserable girl. "You wanted me to act like a boy," he said bitterly. "How do you like it?"  
  
----  
  
to be continued 


	4. Gold Diggers

The following morning, a boy and girl disembarked from a limousine in front of Lakewood Elementary. They looked similar enough to be twins, except for the girl's somewhat puffy nose. The boy wore a pair of khaki jeans and a stylish blue shirt. They stared straight ahead, scowling silently, as they climbed the stairway to the school entrance. 

Brain greeted them as they walked down the hall toward Mr. Ratburn's room. "Hey, Muffy," he inquired, "what happened to your nose?"

"I fell off my bike," Muffy lied.

"Your bike?" Brain marveled. "I've never seen you on a bike before."

"It was my first time without training wheels," Muffy lied again. "It didn't go so well."

"Yes, it does require some adjusting," said Brain academically. "The important thing is to maintain your speed. Then the angular momentum will prevent the bike from tipping over." Noticing something else unusual, he asked, "Hey, Dwayne, why are you walking funny?"

"I, uh, cut myself shaving," Dwayne replied.

When Muffy reached her desk, she pulled a red sofa pillow from her bag and placed it over the seat as a cushion for her bandaged posterior. Soon all the kids had arrived, and their one topic of conversation was the new boy.

"That's Muffy's cousin?" Sue Ellen asked Arthur. "He's so...dreamy-looking."

"I can hardly tell them apart," George remarked to Fern. "Muffy's the girl, right?"

After Mr. Ratburn had finished the roll call, he asked Dwayne to stand at the front of the class and introduce himself.

"My name's Dwayne Crosswire," he began. "I'm Muffy's cousin. I live in Crown City. My dad's a rich steelworker."

"Steelworkers are rich?" Brain interrupted.

"Shut up, Brain," Francine grumbled.

"I like a lot of the same things as Muffy," Dwayne went on. "But I also like"--he glanced at Arthur--"Bionic Bunny, and"--he looked at Binky--"wrestling, and"--he shot a quick smile at Buster--"eating, and"--he took note of George's attentive gaze--"ventriloquism."

Fern sighed audibly.

"How long will you be here?" Buster asked Dwayne.

This was a question he and Muffy hadn't prepared for. Dwayne swallowed. His eyes darted back and forth. Obviously the correct answer was "the rest of my life", but how could he justify it?

Then he saw Buster idly toying with his inhaler, and an idea struck him.

"I have asthma," he said nervously. "They just built a highway right in front of our house, and the exhaust from all the cars going by makes it hard for me to breathe. So I'm staying with Muffy until my parents move."

"Cool," said Buster, his ears perking up. "I have asthma too. Maybe we can inhale together sometime."

Mr. Ratburn delivered a humdrum lecture on the geography of Asia, and the bell rang. As the kids started to insert their notebooks into their bags, the teacher strolled past Muffy and Dwayne, and noted with interest that the two apparently shared the same handwriting style.

Dwayne had scarcely made it out the door when Francine, Sue Ellen, and Fern thronged him, expressions of delight on their faces. "I didn't know Muffy had a boy cousin," Fern gushed. "And a rich one, too. That's so awesome."

"I'm sure my parents would love to have you over for dinner," said Sue Ellen. "Do you like Lebanese?"

"I've never tried it," said Dwayne, who felt more and more uneasy as the three girls followed him toward the washrooms.

"What about sports?" Francine grilled him. "Do you like sports?"

"I hate sports," groused Dwayne as he pushed open the bathroom door and stepped inside, the girls still keeping pace with him.

"Well, nobody's perfect," Francine remarked.

"Do you like poetry at all?" asked Fern as she looked into the mirror and tightened her hair bow. "Last week I memorized _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by_..." She stopped in mid-sentence and gaped in horror at Dwayne's reflection next to her own.

"Fern, what's wrong?" asked Francine with concern.

"Omigosh," uttered Sue Ellen as she realized what had happened.

The direness of the situation finally dawned upon Francine. She screamed. Fern and Sue Ellen screamed. The girls screamed and screamed.

When Dwayne recognized his mistake, he screamed as well. He raced out of the girls' room as quickly as his feet would take him, screaming bloody murder all the way.

His heart pounding, he stared at the boys' washroom door in front of him, and struggled to will himself to move forward. _I have to get used to it_, he thought bitterly. _I'm not a girl anymore._

"Hi, Dwayne," said Arthur, hurrying past him and disappearing into the boys' room.

Dwayne's toes inched forward. "I'll bet it's a horrible mess in there," he pondered quietly. "Boys never bother to clean up after themselves."

"Hi, Dwayne," said Binky with a grin, as he strode through the door into the boys' room.

The reluctant clone boy shuffled a little closer. "I wish this was all a bad dream...I wish I would wake up...wake up, Muffy..."

"Hi, Dwayne," said George with a friendly wave as he made his way into the boys' room.

Dwayne gritted his teeth. "I'm going in," he said to himself with determination. "As soon as Arthur, Binky, and George come out, I'm going in."

"Hi, Dwayne," said Arthur, marching past him into the boys' room.

Dwayne rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Had he really just watched Arthur enter the boys' room twice without leaving? Was his mind playing tricks on him? Or did the room have a secret exit?

He knew he had to discover its secrets. Summoning all his courage, he took one step, then another.

Several minutes later, as he strolled out of the boys' washroom with a look of relief on his face, he saw Muffy sitting on a bench and staring blankly at him. "Congratulations," she said in a bored tone of voice. "Today the boys' room, tomorrow the world."

"It smells funny in there," Dwayne remarked, seating himself next to Muffy.

The monkey girl leaned over until she was within whispering range of Dwayne's ear. "Did you...did you..." she murmured.

"Did I what?"

"Did you do it standing up?"

Dwayne recoiled in disgust. Struck with shame, Muffy looked away from him and stared at her buckle shoes. They sat in awkward silence, the girl and her male clone.

Finally Dwayne spoke, almost inaudibly. "I'm sorry for punching you."

"I'm sorry for being punched by you," was Muffy's response.

Dwayne gazed forward, trying to come up with words that would do justice to his feelings.

"Yesterday was the worst day of my life," he reflected. "When I found out I was a boy, I wished I could die. I still wish I could die. What do I have to look forward to now? A lifetime of short hair, and wearing pants, and getting a wedgie every time I turn my back, and being chased by girls who want to date me because I'm rich."

Muffy sputtered incredulously.

"You saw how they looked at me," Dwayne insisted. "Tell me they're not after my money."

"They're not after your money," said Muffy, chuckling. "They're after your great personality."

"Yeah, right," Dwayne grumbled. "Arthur has a great personality, but I don't see him beating off girls with a stick."

Muffy shook her head condescendingly. "You just don't understand girls," she remarked.

"What do you mean?" Dwayne shot back. "I understand girls perfectly! I used to be one!"

Looking around, he discovered to his horror that his angry outburst had been overheard by several of his friends. Buster, Francine, Sue Ellen, and Binky had stopped in their tracks and were staring at him with open mouths.

Muffy glanced down at her Princess Peach watch. "My, my, look at the time." Quickly rising from the bench, she skipped away toward Mr. Ratburn's classroom.

----

to be continued


	5. Twin Palms

"Did you hear that?" Binky marveled. "Dwayne used to be a girl."  
  
"We'd better stay away from him," Sue Ellen suggested to Francine. "It might be contagious."  
  
Dwayne slowly stood up from the bench, his face a mask of horrified embarrassment. He had let slip too much in the earshot of his four friends, and he needed an excuse immediately. Muffy had abandoned him, but he didn't need her--he was every bit as clever as she was.  
  
"Uh, that's not what I said," he tried to explain. "I said, I understand girls perfectly, as if I used to be one."  
  
"No boy understands girls perfectly," said Francine skeptically.  
  
"Now that you mention it," Buster remarked, "he does act kinda girlish."  
  
"You should know," quipped Sue Ellen.  
  
"Maybe he's really a girl in disguise," Binky theorized.  
  
"Well, he did walk into the girls' room by accident," Francine added.  
  
Dwayne could endure no more of their humiliation. "You are so rude," he said haughtily, and walked away.  
  
"Whoa," mused Binky as he watched the boy depart. "He sounded just like Muffy when he said that."  
  
As morning recess arrived, the kids in Mr. Ratburn's class were exchanging wild ideas about Dwayne and his true origins.  
  
"He looks like Muffy, he talks like Muffy, he acts like Muffy," Buster related to Brain as they were constructing a castle in the sandbox. "It's like aliens abducted Muffy and switched her into a boy."  
  
"I don't believe his story," said Brain. "Nobody gets rich by being a steelworker. And if he really is rich, then he should live in a mansion, and mansions are always located in residential areas, and a highway wouldn't be built through a residential area unless it's a raised highway, which means the exhaust from the cars shouldn't even reach him, because exhaust rises."  
  
"Maybe he's a Muffy clone," Buster suggested.  
  
Brain shook his head. "A clone of Muffy would be a girl. Besides, cloning humans is illegal."  
  
"Why?" asked Buster.  
  
Brain shrugged. "It just is."  
  
"Do you think it should be?" Buster pressed him.  
  
Brain made a sweep with his hand, knocking down one of the castle towers. "Oops," he said apologetically. "Clumsy me."  
  
Their conversation was overheard by Prunella, who happened to be walking past the sandbox. She carefully pondered what the boys had said as she strolled idly through the playground.  
  
When she located Dwayne, the boy was on a bench with a history book clutched tightly in his hands. Upon a closer look, she noticed that the opened book contained a magazine on male modeling. "Hi, Dwayne," she said warmly.  
  
Dwayne quickly slammed the book shut. "Uh, hi, Prunella."  
  
The rat girl took a seat next to him. "I was hoping for a chance to get to know you better," she said with a friendly tone.  
  
"Yeah," Dwayne grumbled. "You and all the other..."  
  
Without asking permission, Prunella grasped his hand and pulled it closer to her. She ran her fingers along his palm, making faint noises in her throat as if to indicate that what she saw interested her.  
  
"What are you doing?" asked Dwayne, trying to not make it obvious that he already knew.  
  
After a few seconds, Prunella relaxed her grip on Dwayne's hand. "The lines in your palm," she said seriously. "They're exactly like Muffy's."  
  
Dwayne held his peace, fearing anything he might say would reveal his secret.  
  
"And your skin," Prunella went on. "It's perfectly smooth, as if you were born yesterday."  
  
"Um, yeah," said Dwayne a bit nervously. "We have servants who do all the hard work."  
  
"From the looks of it, you've never even handled a pencil before," Prunella remarked. "You're a clone, aren't you?"  
  
Dwayne's throat knotted up. He struggled against the urge to panic.  
  
"Don't worry," Prunella reassured him. "I won't tell the police."  
  
It became clear to Dwayne that he could hide nothing from the observant Prunella. "It's true," he admitted quietly, hanging his head. "I'm a clone of Muffy. I wanted a boy who liked the same things I did, so I created me."  
  
Prunella's tone became hushed. "Omigosh...you're really Muffy in there?"  
  
Dwayne nodded sadly.  
  
"Of all the horrible things that could happen to a girl," Prunella mused sympathetically. Then she grinned. "What's it like?"  
  
"Ask me again after gym class," said Dwayne flatly.  
  
As the two conversed, Muffy approached their bench. "There you are, Dwayne," she called to the boy. "Music class is coming up, and I thought we might practice for a violin duet."  
  
Prunella glared indignantly at the girl. "Dwayne told me everything," she said accusingly. "How could you do such a thing to yourself?"  
  
Muffy only shrugged.  
  
"You're a selfish little brat," Prunella chided her. "You created a girl in a boy's body just so you could have a like-minded playmate. Well, maybe Dwayne doesn't want to play with you anymore."  
  
A new idea struck Dwayne's mind like a bolt from the sky. Why hadn't he thought of it before?  
  
"That's right," he said, his confidence growing. "I don't want to play with you anymore, Muffy."  
  
The monkey girl shot him an incredulous glance.  
  
"From now on, Prunella's my best friend," Dwayne announced proudly. "She knows the truth about me, and she's okay with it."  
  
As Prunella nodded in agreement, Muffy's eyes widened in shock.  
  
"But...but you can't do that!" she stammered. "You're my clone! I created you to be my friend!"  
  
Dwayne and Prunella smirked mockingly at her.  
  
"Fine," groused Muffy, placing her hands on her hips. "But you'll come crawling back to me by the end of the day, mark my words." Having said that, she stormed away.  
  
"Another satisfied customer," quipped Dwayne.  
  
"Have you seen the new Talking Polly Locket dolls?" Prunella asked him in a gleeful tone of voice.  
  
"Yeah, they're great," Dwayne replied.  
  
The pair spent most of their free time together, and after school they met for ice cream sodas at the Sugar Bowl.  
  
"Rubella and I have tickets for Kresblaine's next show," Prunella related between sips from her straw. "I was thinking of asking Muffy if she could get us backstage passes, but she's so selfish, she'd probably charge me an arm and a leg."  
  
"Don't be so hard on her," Dwayne responded. "Remember, whatever you say about her, you say about me."  
  
"Unless I say she's a girl," Prunella rejoined.  
  
Dwayne tried his best to giggle, but only a chuckle came out.  
  
"Back to my original question," said Prunella. "What's it like being a boy?"  
  
"Why do you want to know? Are you thinking of trying it?"  
  
"No, I'm just curious."  
  
As Dwayne weighed his answer, Arthur and Francine stopped in front of his table.  
  
"Check it out," said Arthur curiously. "Dwayne and Prunella."  
  
"I guess he's a boy after all," Francine remarked.  
  
"I know what you're thinking," said Dwayne, narrowing his eyes. "Prunella is not my boy...er, girlfriend."  
  
"I believe you," said Francine insincerely, and she followed Arthur to another table.  
  
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," said Dwayne, his tone one of annoyance. "I've only been a boy for a day. How can I have a girlfriend already?"  
  
"There's one other thing I wanted to ask you," said Prunella.  
  
Dwayne held his breath while the rat girl glanced around furtively.  
  
Prunella leaned closer and spoke in a half-whisper. "When you were a girl, did you...you know..."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Did you...like a boy?"  
  
At first taken aback by the question, Dwayne sighed and lowered his eyes.  
  
"Brain," he admitted.  
  
Prunella held back a gasp.  
  
"I liked Brain," Dwayne confessed. "I had this fantasy that we were married, and he did his scientific stuff, and I modeled fashions, and I made all the money." He sighed again, more glumly this time. "But now it will never happen."  
  
Prunella sipped her soda and looked attentively at the boy.  
  
"I took lengthy notes about all the boys I knew," Dwayne went on. "I compared and contrasted them, and it wasn't easy to pick a favorite, but Brain eventually bubbled to the top. He's a little nerdy, but he's got a heart of gold." He thoughtfully turned his soda glass with his fingers. "Now I'll have to start all over again, with the girls."  
  
----  
  
to be continued 


	6. Truth or Dare

Dwayne didn't return to the Crosswire mansion until after 7 p.m. that evening. Muffy, a patronizing look on her face, intercepted him as he headed for the guest bedroom. "Where have you been?" she demanded. "You missed dinner." 

"I ate at Prunella's," replied Dwayne with a carefree smile. "Her mom made meat loaf. It was great."

"We had Beef Wellington," said Muffy haughtily. "You missed out."

She followed Dwayne into his bedroom, where the boy leaned over and started to unlace his shoes. "What did you do at Prunella's?" she inquired. "I mean, besides eating meat loaf."

"She showed me how to read tarot cards," answered Dwayne as he pulled off his left shoe. "Then we looked at a doll catalog together."

"A doll catalog?" Muffy repeated in astonishment.

"Yeah, I know," said Dwayne bitterly. "Girl stuff."

Muffy threw up her hands in resignation. "You're hopeless, Dwayne."

"I can't help it," said the monkey boy, inserting his feet into a pair of sandals. "I have your personality. Prunella respects that."

Rolling her eyes, Muffy started toward the doorway. When she reached it, she turned and gazed hopefully at Dwayne. "Arthur asked me to pass on a message to you," she informed him. "The boys are having a sleepover at his place on Friday, and you're invited."

Dwayne dropped his rear end onto the edge of the bed and sighed. "Oh, that would be rich. Sharing the deepest, darkest secrets of my heart with the boys. I'll bet they have a secret initiation rite that involves eating live insects."

"I'll tell him you'll be there," said Muffy. Her skirt swung about as she skipped away from the bedroom, whistling happily.

"Tell him whatever you like," grumbled Dwayne, but no one was listening.

----

"More chamomile tea?" asked Prunella.

Dwayne gratefully held out his cup, and the rat girl tipped over the steaming teapot to fill it. Between the two kids sat a small table, around which several dolls were seated on miniature chairs. It was Friday afternoon.

"My mom won't let me drink black tea," Prunella explained as she rested the teapot on an oven cloth. "She doesn't drink it herself. She says it's too yin."

The smooth-tasting tea warmed Dwayne's heart as he sipped it. "The boys are having a sleepover tonight," he told Prunella, "but I'm not going."

"Why not?" asked his friend.

"Well, you know," said Dwayne evasively.

"I'm not saying you should go," Prunella excused herself. "I'm just curious. If you're still uncomfortable about hanging out with the boys, then I understand."

"You're right," said Dwayne, taking another sip. "I don't feel like I belong with the boys. Or with the girls, either. Except for you and Muffy, the girls all see me as a potential boyfriend."

Prunella grinned warmly.

"Muffy's technically my sister," Dwayne went on. "She knows we can't have that kind of relationship. Not that I'd want it with her."

"I can't begin to imagine how lonely you must be," said Prunella, pouring herself another cupful of herbal tea. "Fern, and Sue Ellen, and Francine used to be your best friends, but now they're jealous because they think you and I are an item. I keep telling them that's not true, but they say if it isn't, then it's my duty as a friend to line them up with you."

Dwayne gazed into Prunella's bright eyes, knowing he had found a harbor of sympathy in the midst of the turmoil he was passing through. As Muffy, he had always considered the rat girl to be a bit eccentric, but all he could see now was a heart of gold and a shoulder that would always be there to cry on.

_Oh, Prunella_, he thought joyfully. _If only I could find the words..._

The words? For what?

He slowly lowered his teacup onto the saucer on the doll table. What he felt wasn't right at all. It wasn't friendship. It wasn't sisterhood. It was something only a boy would feel...

"Dwayne?" Prunella's voice became filled with concern at the sight of the boy's consternation. "Is something wrong?"

He hated the feeling. He had to get rid of it, but the only way was to leave, and quickly.

"I, uh, changed my mind," said Dwayne anxiously. "I...I've decided to go to the sleepover at Arthur's after all."

The corners of Prunella's mouth drooped.

"I'm sorry," said Dwayne contritely. "I'd love to stay here, but I think I should at least try to fit in with the boys."

"I understand," said Prunella with a hint of disappointment. "I'll get your clothes."

As the rat girl stepped out of the bedroom, Dwayne stood up and brushed the skirt he was wearing to straighten it. He couldn't change out of Prunella's year-old dress fast enough.

----

"Truth or dare, Dwayne," Arthur repeated impatiently. The other boys in the circle--Buster, Binky, Brain, and George--all stared at the monkey boy, waiting for him to make a decision.

"If I choose truth, they'll ask me if I'm a clone of Muffy," Dwayne worried silently. "But if I choose dare, they'll make me do something utterly humiliating, like take off my pants, or kiss a girl."

If the question was too embarrassing, he could always lie, he thought.

"Truth."

Arthur didn't miss a beat. "Are you in love with Prunella?"

Dwayne's heart nearly leaped out of his throat.

"Uh...er..." he sputtered.

"Well?" Arthur demanded.

He knew the right answer, but he feared to reveal it. Yet the other boys had probably guessed from his pallid, shocked expression that he was, indeed, infatuated with Prunella.

He had to answer the question. Everyone was waiting.

He opened his mouth to speak...

...and then he woke up.

He couldn't figure out how he had been transported from Arthur's living room to a water bed in a darkened place. He was mostly covered in a blanket, his head resting against a down pillow. He remembered going to sleep, waking up as a boy, attending the sleepover, and now this...

In his confusion, he was able to determine one thing--he was in Muffy's room. Yawning, stretching, and groaning, he noticed that his voice had risen slightly in pitch. Excited at what this might imply, he shoved the blanket away, leaped from the bed, switched on the light, and stepped in front of the full-length mirror.

The ecstatic Muffy Crosswire smiled back at him. "I'm me again," she enthused. "It was all a dream."

The wish she had wished so fondly throughout her nightmare had come true--she was not a boy, but a girl. Relief washed through her heart.

Thrilled to be alive, she bathed quickly and changed into her dress. She virtually floated to the dining room, where Claude the manservant had set out three bowls of piping hot oatmeal--one for her, one for her mother, and one for the glum-looking red-haired boy sitting at the other end of the table.

Muffy made a habit of hating oatmeal, but on this occasion she was grateful to be pumping food into a little girl stomach. The boy across from her took small bites and chewed slowly, as if he was scheduled for execution at the end of the meal.

Then the full meaning of the dream dawned upon Muffy, and empathy for the hapless Dwayne filled her heart. She laid her spoon upon the table, staining the varnished surface with oatmeal.

"I'm so sorry," she said quietly.

Dwayne's eyes widened, as if he had never heard those three words from Muffy.

"I've been so insensitive," the girl went on. "I didn't understand how hard it was for you, being a girl stuck as a boy. But I just had a dream that made it clear to me."

Dwayne's lips started to curve upward.

"From now on, I won't make any demands of you," said Muffy. "If you want to be girlish, that's fine with me. If you want to go to Prunella's and wear her old dresses, I'll look the other way."

"Uh, thanks," said Dwayne, unsure what to make of the girl's change in attitude.

"If there's anything I can do to make your life as a boy easier," Muffy offered, "just ask."

Dwayne smiled with elation, yet the back of his mind was concerned about something.

How had Muffy known about the dresses?

----

THE END


End file.
